Please Note: There is no member meeting in January.

Welcome

Approximately 40 members attended the festive pot luck dinner. A very good time was had by all!

Following the dinner, the Annual General Meeting was called to order by president Lise Bois.

Meeting

The meeting was called to order by the President, who introduced District 3 President Penny Stewart.

Proceedings began with a motion to adopt the Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of 2016. There were neither questions, nor discussion of the motion which was deemed to be carried.

Reports

Year in Review: Lise ran through the highlights of a strong line-up of 2017’s speakers and the society activities, focussing particularly on the very successful Flower Show held in Wellington this year. The 2018 show will be held in Wellington in mid-June.

Membership: Membership is rising and currently stands at 80 members.

Treasurer’s Report:
The financial report was provided to all present, and briefly presented by John Garside. There were questions from the audience (which may be addressed in 2018), but no changes were required to the 2017 report which was duly approved.

Auditor Appointment: on a motion from John Garside, duly seconded, the continuation of Auditor services from the current provider was approved.

New Business

Certificates of Appreciation
President Lise Bois awarded certificates to those people who had provided extraordinary service during the year. Below, left to right: John Clark, Lise Bois, Pat Stuckey, and Sandra Dowds [award recipient Jan She absent from picture].

Election of Directors
Penny Stewart took the ‘chair’ to deal with the election. Lise introduced the members who had agreed to stand for election (through the prior work of the election committee) and invited nominations from the floor. There being none, those standing were duly elected by acclamation.

Left-to-right below: Ursula Cattelan, Lise Bois, Nancy Kish, John Garside, Kathy Bondy, John Clark, Darlene Johnston, Sally Clark, and Hedy Brambat-Kellar.
Greetings from OHA
Penny Stewart gave a brief presentation with greetings from the OHA which wishes to thank volunteers (who contributed almost 520,000 hours of effort for the Association). Penny talked about the upcoming conference in Kingston for 2018.

Note: a more detailed account of Penny’s address is available as a 185kB Adobe pdf download here.

Trophy Presentations

Kathy Bondy presented the society prizes for Flower Show categories as well as the monthly mini-show competition. Penny Stewart presented the prize for Kathy Bondy’s win.

Pat Stuckey: Best Iris

Pat Stuckey: Best annual/perennial

Pat Stuckey: Best Peony

Kathy Bondy: Overall mini-show points

The meeting concluded after Lise thanked all volunteers who had been involved with organizing the evening’s proceedings.

Photographs © by Bert Jenkins

Lise Bois opened the meeting by welcoming the members and guests present.

She noted that the November meeting was our Annual General Meeting and the customary pot-luck meal, and would begin at 6:00 pm rather than 7:00 pm. The AGM is when the executive gets elected for the upcoming year. Please consider volunteering yourself!

Ursula Cattelan volunteered to serve as Treasurer for the next year (note this is not an elected position).

Also, membership fees are now due.If you haven’t done that yet, treat yourself for Christmas and buy a membership or family membership.

Extending the Season

Lise gave a lavishly illustrated presentation on how to extend the gardening season.

At the start of the season surround plants with straw for warmth; think about ‘grow lights’ (after Christmas) inside your plant boxes, etc.

DIY cloches can be built very cheaply and protect new growing plants.

Protect growing plants from early Fall frosts using cold frames allows you to get fresh veggies well into the year.

Finally, remember to ‘extend’ the season by pickling your vegetables.

And on a closing note: before the ground is frozen, fill a couple of recycled plastic containers with earth and add fruit or vegetables/herbs on top so that the plants go through the entire freezing and thawing cycle and nothing gets eaten by a passing squirrel. This works best with self-sowing seeds like tomatoes, marigolds, cosmos, dill, coriander, and much more.

Presentation

Jackie Darton gave a presentation about olive oils.

She explained the differences between red and white balsamic oils. She explained that the oils for sale at the Picton store were sourced from many locations to provide year-round fresh oils from various seasonal harvesting locations.

She also noted that the oils were classed as mild, medium, and robust, with tobust having the highest concentration of anti-oxidants in the product.

Mini-show

This month, there were many entries in the mini-show. Members vote their preferences. The show is open to all. Give it a try!

Display Class – Grasses in bloom: 1st – Ursula Cattelan (below left), 2nd – Kathy Bondy (below centre), and 3rd – Pat Stuckey (below right).

Design Class – Haunted Hallowe’en: 1st – Lise Bois (below left), 2nd – Phyllis Davis (below centre), and 3rd – Kathy Bondy (below right).

Click images to see larger versions.

Photographs © by Bert Jenkins